Biotech entrepreneurship took center stage at Northeastern on Friday, when four teams of graduate students pitched their startups to a panel of judges at a competition that wrapped up an eight-week boot camp.

The prevailing view of research science is that professors and laboratory staff work on obscure challenges for which a lifetime might not be enough time to solve. Or that their projects might have limited application in the ‘real’ world. If that’s how you think, you haven’t met Dr. Barry Karger.